But my answer is this: inspiration is not the exclusive privilege of poets or artists generally. There is, has been, and will always be a certain group of people whom inspiration visits. It’s made up of all those who’ve consciously chosen their calling and do their job with love and imagination. It may include doctors, teachers, gardeners – and I could list a hundred more professions. Their work becomes one continuous adventure as long as they manage to keep discovering new challenges in it. Difficulties and setbacks never quell their curiosity. A swarm of new questions emerges from every problem they solve. Whatever inspiration is, it’s born from a continuous “I don’t know.”

I thought I was a hedonist at the time, but when I look back I was always working. I am always working. I work every day. I never give parties; I never gave them.

I never got to the point where I felt that nonviolence was not viable. ... I realized that it wasn’t that it wouldn’t work, it’s that people didn’t follow the proper steps in trying to achieve it because there are a set of principles and there are a set of steps in the methodology that we were taught about nonviolence. And when we follow those they work.

I started reading poetry in primary school—Victor Hugo, the romantics, and the Parnassians—they were part of the curriculum. In my grandfather’s library there were some anthologies of nineteenth-century poetry. Alfred de Vigny impressed me most; indeed I won a competition by reciting Vigny’s “Moses” with an enthusiasm that touched the examiner. In fact this poem and “La Maison du Berger” are among the most beautiful poems in the French language, unfairly neglected today.

Keeping all devices aside 1 hour before sleep, stopping all work chats at Zerodha unless critical after 6pm, and spending time doing what is most relaxing just before sleep (spending time with my son & hobbies) and on weekends has helped me the most with sleep.

Sleeping by 9 pm & getting a workout at 5 am has been helpful. Sleeping early reduces the chances of bingeing when we are drained and have low self-control at the end of the day. A workout in the morning also increases the odds of making healthier choices throughout the day.